


Joie de Vivre

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Albert Wesker Mention, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Implied/Referenced Past Betrayal, S.T.A.R.S. Bein' Bros, Team Fluff, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27257602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: In a kinder version of 1998, Chris arrives at work to find that Forest has set up for a very S.T.A.R.S. Halloween.
Relationships: Chris Redfield & Forest Speyer
Kudos: 4





	Joie de Vivre

“You don’t do  _ anything  _ halfway, do you, buddy,” Chris said with a grin.

He sauntered to a stop in front of Forest, who, too, was grinning, arms folded and his stance rested back, the very  _ picture of pride _ .

Chris took in what that glowing pride was about again - passing a gaze one way over the S.T.A.R.S. office. Then cruising it the other.

Not a desk wasn’t decorated - pumpkins sat on desks, some jack-o’-lanterns, some miniature and stacked with others of their size in colorful arrangements. More pumpkins stacked high in the corners of the office itself; twisted leafless plants framed a whiteboard decorated with your classic image of skeletons dancing; plastic crows hung from the ceiling (not bats, Chris noted, his smile thoughtfully neutralizing for one pointed second as he wondered if Forest was trying to make a point of something). For Pete’s sake, Chris didn’t think he’d seen a setup like this off of a suburban lawn since Claire’s eighth-grade class.

Forest tossed his head, lightly - his hair scattered across his shoulders; his head fell to a cool-as-a-cucumber tilt. A shrug. “Times’ve gotten crazy these past few months, am I right? I’d say none of us got a reason not to put everything all out there while  _ we’re  _ at it - ” A small, flickering wry turn of muscles in his face, and faint scrunch of the bridge of his nose. “ - especially now that we don’t have Wesker and  _ his  _ ever-so-festive self looming over the office.”

Chris’s face likewise turned, in the same kind of wryness; he blew a breath of a laugh not without some amount of  _ spite  _ through his nose.

It was, after all, kind of nice to let himself think of Wesker not in terms of what he’d been keeping behind all their backs, or, for that matter, everything he’d quite knowingly subjected them to on the Night of the Mansion. No one had died, no, and some part of him liked to think that they were all too tough, too professional, and too good for any of them to have that night; it seemed downright wrong that any of them could have. It would have been irresponsible and likewise wrong, however, not to acknowledge that many of them had frequently come close.

Nah - there was some kind of relief in, instead, getting to think about the fact that  _ on top of all that, Wesker was never the most master-of-ceremonies-type boss when it came time for workplace celebrations. _

Not that he’d ever disallowed or even been discouraging of them - but he had always been kindovan odd one out when it came to  _ group bonding _ , whether it was doing more than just-acknowledge holiday events or having much more of a presence on such occasions as the day they’d welcomed Rebecca onto the team.

...Maybe it was just now knowing the other ways he’d been out and apart from the rest of S.T.A.R.S. casting a new light on looking back on that kind of thing. Chris didn’t know, and supposed he kind of couldn’t.

He did know, though, that either way, he was definitely already getting a different feel from the office this Halloween than he’d gotten from any workplace environment since his rookie days.

He surveyed the decor again with a small, fond smile, feeling as if there was a bit of a glow to the oranges of the pumpkins; a nerve and moxie crackling from crow to crow to whiteboard-skeleton and something  _ daring  _ about the just-short-of-silly  _ flamboyancy  _ of it all.

It was an energy that Forest utterly carried dragging right along behind him as he swaggered like some kind of a jaguar over to a little boombox set on a countertop in front of the whiteboard. Leaned over with a sharpness to his eyes as he clicked a button.

Chris raised an eyebrow right before the sound of a door creaking. Footsteps. A dog barking and howling.

...Tugged a fondly-dry grin on sidelong, puffing another soft laugh through his nose, not knowing what he expected.

Forest pushed himself back up from the boombox with a little flash behind his eyes, still proud and caring that more now decidedly-silly flamboyant daring for all it was worth. “...Joseph helped me pull the setlist together,” he said; a palm-up wave-in toward the radio. “You can’t leave any of the classics out of the mix, and you can’t go wrong heading things off with ‘Thriller’.”

“Think it’s a good time of the year to laugh in the face of the things that go bump in the night…?”

Chris  _ meant  _ it as a question, in all earnest. He certainly couldn’t be one to judge even if he wanted to.  _ The Boys and Girls _ had…

...well, certainly earned at the very least this much, after what they’d seen in that mansion and in the stings yielding so frustratingly-few leads with which to more efficiently bust Umbrella with over the summer and autumn since then.

Actual zombies. Actual graveyard-stalking beasts, and torture cells, and diagrams of horrors and mysterious vials in unnatural colors.

Some of the… casual banter of it he’d intended fell out of it, however, as he meandered up after Forest, in slow, purposeful steps - it didn’t cool, but dried up in his chest.

The little cords keeping his smile suspended dropped to just slacken.

He and Forest looked each other face-to-face.

And Forest lowered his head and eyes, still smiling.

He laughed once, just long enough not to be entirely passing. “Might be a little bit of that and a little bit of after going to hell and back with you guys more than once by now, I’m all for there being a lot to celebrate.”

A double-pat on Chris’s shoulder and a lift of his face again. Hand still in place, he walked past Chris, turning his head over his shoulder.

Grin easy yet still fixedly-determined.

“Now once you’ve got everything situated for the day, meet me and the guys at the range unless you’re not  _ brave  _ enough, all right, buddy?” A wink. “And to be on the safe side, bring enough cash to grab lunch for more than one. You are gonna love what a couple of other guys and me put together…”


End file.
